In network systems such as subscriber television systems, a digital home communication terminal (“DHCT”), otherwise known as the set-top box, is capable of providing video services connected to the subscriber television system, and is typically located at the user's premises and connected to the subscriber television system, such as, for example, a cable or satellite network. The DHCT includes hardware and software necessary to provide digital video services to the end user with various levels of usability and/or functionality. One of the features of the DHCT includes the ability to receive and decompress a digital video signal in a compressed format, wherein such compression may be in accordance with a video coding specification such as the Advanced Video Coding (AVC) standard, and the resulting coded video streams are referred to herein as bitstreams. New video coding specifications generally have a rich set of compression tools and can exploit temporal redundancies among pictures in more elaborate and comprehensive ways than prior video coding standards. Such advanced features also impose management of when decoded pictures are output and their corresponding resources are marked to be released for consumption by subsequent decoded pictures.